For all the hype surrounding the ‘solutions’ offered by the Internet and Information technology, hospitality industry investors and managers are taking a much more cautious approach towards further IT investments and demanding concrete proof that all the bells and whistles will deliver what the vendors say they will.

Burnt by the continuing dot-com bust and confused by the conflicting claims made by vendors, hotel owners are becoming much more wary about the tendency to ‘over-promise and under-deliver’ the so-called ‘technology solutions’ which often leaves them strapped with more problems and less solutions, both of which mean higher costs.

Technology vendors salivate at the prospects of selling to the travel & tourism industry which in many ways has become a guinea pig for people selling everything from digital maps and automatic key-lock systems to security gadgets, reservation systems, customer-relationship management software and a pile of other gadgets and gizmos.

All these sales pitches are invariably accompanied by the implicit threat of the ‘opportunity lost’ by not climbing on to the technology bandwagon and the ‘competitive advantage’ that a hotel allegedly will lose. While some vendors do deliver and honour their promises, many others are simply fly-by-night operators involved with here-today-gone-tomorrow companies.

Moreover, conferences and seminars on technology issues will rarely, if ever, feature discussions what went wrong or how many people got burnt by bad advice based on futuristic scenarios that did not work out, primarily because organisers of such events depend on the sponsorship support of these same vendors and management gurus.

But the dot-com bust has clearly triggered a reality check. Take for example this summary released last week of proceedings at Eurhotec, the European Hospitality Technology Exhibition & Conference, held in Paris last month by the International Hotel and Restaurant Association (IH&RA). The event was accompanied by a high-level Think-Tank on Technology.

Said the IH&RA summary, “Participants at the Think Tank could have been expected to talk about the future of e- and m-business, wireless applications, Voice-Over IP and ASPs. But they sidelined predictions about ‘the next big thing’ in favour of sharing their views on the most crucial challenge facing hospitality companies in the e-hospitality environment: The human and the business dimensions.

The group identified a series of ‘gaps’ exposed by the tech revolution which the industry must make a priority of closing:

— The gulf between the promise of what technology can do and what is actually being delivered;

— The polarisation of state-of-the-art hi-tech and the ‘high-touch’ personalised experience sought by guests;

— The ‘digital divide’ between senior management and the IT-savvy generations X and Y now entering the workplace;

— The widening ‘lag’ between the pace of IT adoption in the hospitality workplace and the aspirations of younger generation recruits;

— The techno-void in the existing ‘body of knowledge’ available to hospitality students;

— The technology skills vacuum in the industry;

“The bottleneck today is human bandwidth,” was how one participant summed up the group’s findings by facilitator Dan Connolly, Assistant Professor at the University of Denver School of Hotel, Restaurant & Tourism Management. There was unanimous agreement that the people dimension was crucial to the future of technology in the industry – the right skills, the right levels of IT awareness and the right organisational structures.

The Think Tank participants agreed that the hospitality industry also has a long way to go in inventing valid ‘tools’ to measure returns on technology investments, and to marry the on-line and off-line worlds successfully.

“Driven by a combination of customer demands, new technologies, competition, and labour force expectations, hospitality is progressing but is still held back by its fragmented ownership structure, the complexity of the infrastructure and the capital outlays required,” the summary statement said.

The group concurred that it was imperative to establish greater credibility and trust among investors. Because it is harder to demonstrate to an investor the value of improving IT than that, for example, of building additional rooms, a more convincing case for IT must be made.

“Participants identified a need for research into the critical success factors for technology as well as the elements of value that underpin the cost structure and revenue potential of technology-related investments.” Translation: If the IT people want to generate more sales among the travel & tourism industry, they had better start proving what financial benefits their products can deliver, within the promised time frame.

Indeed, there is more technology to come. A representative of IBM talked of a WAP phone that allows remote check-in and in-flight movie selection before arrival at the airport; in-flight video-conferencing with colleagues on other planes; voice-activated GPS equipment rental cars; hotel scanners that identify the guest upon on arrival allowing instant key delivery and customised information on the guestroom TV; bio-metric scanning to pass customs at the airport.

A representative of VingCard Elsafe talked of inter-connectivity of in-room devices that would make air-conditioning, locking, minibar, TV, phone, safe and energy systems all connected via a central server to key hotel departments, such as front desk, kitchen and engineering. This could, for example, make it possible to alert guests checking-out that they have left passports and tickets in the room-safe.

But another group of people took a more cautious approach and asked: How much of all this will guests actually want? And the critical question: How much will all this cost in relation to the supposed benefits they will deliver?

To install all these systems is one thing, making the staff familiar with them is another. Hotel guests also carry their own computers and want in-room accessories to ensure that their own equipment can be used properly. When things don’t work and if the staff do not know how to make it work, you can kiss that guest’s business good-bye.

Concluded the Think-Tank: “Technology will only ‘stick’ if it is customer-centric and if it helps the hotel to improve guest retention. The speed of the evolution of mobile-business will depend on the user-friendliness of the devices involved.” And finally, “It doesn’t matter why the guest can’t make the technology work – it will reflect badly on the hotel.”

Peace Through Tourism

How Travel & Tourism Can Help Restore the Balance in the Emerging New World Order

"The travel & tourism buzzword of the 21st century will be the search for balance."

That forecast was made by Imtiaz Muqbil, Executive Editor, Travel Impact Newswire, in the monthly strategic intelligence publication of PATA, the Pacific Asia Travel Association, way back in February 1999. Today, it is proving spot-on as the word "balance" resonates across all industry sectors.

Travel industry conferences seeking a speaker who can offer some unique historical hindsight, unconventional foresight and thought-provoking insight on how to rebuild and restore the balance in Asia Pacific travel & tourism can email Imtiaz Muqbil by clicking here.

There Can Be No Sustainability Without Spirituality

The New World Order will be dominated by a resurgence of spirituality.

Imtiaz Muqbil claims to be the world's only travel journalist to have visited the Holy Spots of all the major world religions -- Lumbhini, Bodhgaya, Varanasi, Nalanda, Jerusalem, Vatican City, Amritsar, Makkah, Madinah, Najaf and Karbala, as well as religious spots such as Angkor Wat, Bagan, Shwedagon Pagoda, Temple of the Emerald Buddha, Temple of The Tooth, Somnath Temple, Samarkand, Bukhara and many other great mosques, shrines, temples and cathedrals worldwide.

Sustainability, ecotourism and health & wellness travel have all become so 'yesterday'. Prepare for the new generation of travel in the New World Order and raise the bar of your next conference, management forum or seminar by hearing Imtiaz Muqbil's thoughts on this unmatched game- and life-changing experience.

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Secrets of Thailand's Tourism Success

Why the Amazing Kingdom is notching up record-breaking arrivals, and what challenges it faces next

The Thai tourism industry has become by far the Kingdom's most successful service sector, one of its leading job-creators and foreign exchange-earners. Behind this success lies a fascinating history of great branding campaigns, policy and regulatory changes, budgetary bunfights, strategic thinking and influence of Royal events.

But this success has now bred a new set of management challenges that may be more difficult to overcome.

Travel Impact Newswire Executive Editor Imtiaz Muqbil has been monitoring the pulse of the Thai travel industry full-time since 1981. Industry conferences and management meetings wishing to benefit from a treasure trove of insights and hindsights on one of the world's great tourism success stories can drop an email here: imtiaz@travel-impact-newswire.com.

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The Rise of the Whistle-Blowers

For 15 years (January 1997-July 2012), Imtiaz Muqbil penned a hard-hitting fortnightly column called “Soul-Searching” in the so-called “newspaper you can trust”. In July 2012, the column was gagged, with no explanation.

Over the years, four columns had explicitly forecast the rise of whistle-blowers -- a prediction now coming 100% true. Read the four columns by clicking on the links below.

Too Bad Your Ad Is Not in This Spot

Space available for unique ads that demonstrate commitment to helping physically-challenged people, building global peace, improving social and cultural cohesion, providing opportunities for the under-privileged, alleviating poverty and combatting global injustice & corruption.

If your product is not meeting any of the above goals, please advertise elsewhere.

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News Vs Noise

A Unique Course for Travel & Tourism Communicators In The Internet Era

By far the vast majority of media communications in the travel industry is boring, banal and bland. The same way it has been for the last 30 years.

Travel Impact Newswire Executive Editor Imtiaz Muqbil has designed a special communications course to help upgrade both the context and the content of industry media material, and make it more interesting, readable and, most important, relevant.